D&D 5E To boxed text or not to boxed text

[Staffan]

I generally riff on the boxed text, but only strictly adhere to it when it describes details or dialog that is vitally important to the understanding of the section. Other than that, I go for the spirit rather than the exact words.

I'd like to see a change in boxed text formatting, maybe to bullet points rather than just a straight bit of text to read. Something like this:

-The cavern is 50'x75'
-The walls glitter with mica when illuminated
-There is one entrance and two exits; from the one on the left an eerie chanting can by heard; from the one on the right you can see a skeleton collapsed on the ground, as if fleeing something from the tunnel

I mostly like this, though as a minor quibble I prefer absolute directions instead of relative. After all, there's nothing to say which door the PCs enter through.

 

[jayoungr]

I've read twice the frst boxed set you quoted and I'm still wondering what is wrong with it. From what I understand, the characters open the door into a chamber which is dark and fall into an ambushed set by archers, perhaps with the use of a light spell.

I wondered about that too, but then I thought, maybe the party includes PCs with darkvision who theoretically should be able to see into the room.

 

[pemerton]

To be clear, I am not mocking you - your description of your early DMing sounds like you took to it easily. But given the dearth of DMs, I don't think we should be making it harder to people to take it up and learn. Not everyone is a natural storyteller, or easily runs groups and describes settings; for many people, it is an acquired skill, and those boxed descriptions provides that bit of confidence to get them going and lets them more easily focus on other parts of DMing when they are learning.

My experience - both personally as a GM, and of other GMs - is that the hardest bit for most GMs (new or otherwise) isn't narration/describing stuff, but rather is managing the fiction via some other method than just railroading their plot over the top of player action declarations.

The only authored adventures I can think of at the moment that try and respond to this, by providing support for the GM to avoid railroading within the context of the adventure, are Robin Laws' adventures in the HeroWars Narrator's Book.

I think that boxed text tends to exacerbate the issue rather than help with it. Hence my strong preference for something like dot points, that contain the needed information in an easily accesible form, but don't pre-script the adventure.

It may be controversial to mention it due to its authorship, but ZakS"s reworked/reformatted version of Death Frost Doom is an example of what I have in mind. No boxed test, but the use of text layout and font, plus careful choices about how to present descriptions, enable the information to be extracted, including providing for varioius contingencies (some of them mutually exclusive) in a clear way.

 

[Satyrn]

I wondered about that too, but then I thought, maybe the party includes PCs with darkvision who theoretically should be able to see into the room.

It assumes so many other things, too. For example:

That the players didn't have an unseen servant opening the door for them, and aren't even near enough to see into the room.
That they don't teleport into the room.
That they haven't already talked to whatever's in the room.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

My experience - both personally as a GM, and of other GMs - is that the hardest bit for most GMs (new or otherwise) isn't narration/describing stuff, but rather is managing the fiction via some other method than just railroading their plot over the top of player action declarations.

I think the easier way to avoid "railroading" is to not run plot-based adventures (or "event-based" as the 5e DMG calls them). Location-based adventures with boxed text is just the initial work of describing the environment (first step in the play loop) done for the DM. To the extent that reduces the DM's prep time, I'd say that provides good value.

 

[LordEntrails]

Boxed text does no harm, unless you get butt hurt because you can do better and are offended by the suggestion of what to do.

A poorly written module is poorly written, boxed text or not.

Railroading and plot development are not on the list of concerns of first (second or third) time DM's. In my experience, they are worried about:
- giving the players the information they need for an encounter/location
- remember combat rules
- remembering what attacks or abilities to have the NPCs use

Sure, they have probably read the module once or twice. But it didn't make a lot of sense to them, it was all just a bunch of stuff.

Sure bullet points will help them decipher an encounter quickly. But well written boxed text will give them a leg up too, telling them just what to tell the players, assuming a "standard approach".

More important than bullet points, imo, is a concise and well written location entries that follow the same format every time. i.e. the DM know where the creatures are. S/he knows where to find their tactics and what they do. Knows where more details on the location are, etc.

 

[Manbearcat]

Railroading and plot development are not on the list of concerns of first (second or third) time DM's.

This may be true, but it shouldn't be.

Internalizing the deployment of metaplot or play trajectory (if in a confined site like a dungeon) via player-subordinating-Force (either because you learned under a GM who deployed it or because you read a module/ruleset that supports, or seems to, it) as a/the means for a game to achieve forward momentum is something that is not easy to unlearn.

Its many times easier to learn the principles of "Hold on Lightly" and "Play to Find Out What Happens" while learning the techniques that facilitate this right from the get-go.

Then, later, if you have players that want a passive experience of metaplot/setting-tourism down the line (where they aren't responsible for dynamic plot trajectory, but just mild choices with muted results in subtly branching, predetermined paths), that is easy enough to do. Further, through the above experience, you'll more easily/thoroughly understand (a) why they want that passive experience and (b) when/where/why/how to deploy Force to facilitate this.

Coming at the latter from the former is significantly more difficult for a myriad of reasons.

 

[LordEntrails]

This may be true, but it shouldn't be.

Internalizing the deployment of metaplot or play trajectory (if in a confined site like a dungeon) via player-subordinating-Force (either because you learned under a GM who deployed it or because you read a module/ruleset that supports, or seems to, it) as a/the means for a game to achieve forward momentum is something that is not easy to unlearn.

Its many times easier to learn the principles of "Hold on Lightly" and "Play to Find Out What Happens" while learning the techniques that facilitate this right from the get-go.....

Maybe. If you have someone to teach you.

But, as the growth of D&D over the last decade has shown, many many many new players and DMs have no one to teach them (other than innuendos in shows like Stranger Things and Critical Role). They need the game to be accessible. This includes their first module or two to be simple, straight forward and something that they can pick up, skim through, and start playing. Besides, such games may be as far as they ever go, and that's fine if it meets the DM and players desires (even if they "don't know better").

Sandboxing, spontaneous creation or whatever you want to call it take more. More time, more skill, more effort, more interest. Not everyone wants to spend that amount of x.

Sure, if we were to develop a new DM from scratch with the goal of having a world class DM, we would start some how like you mention. But since ~95% of DM will never go there, it's more important that the game be accessible.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

The Season 8 adventures would make anyone in favour of boxed text... but they actually just demonstrate how not to organise information. Boxed text would at least give the DM a starting point for running those encounters, but I'm not sure if it would save it by itself!

It's not just a matter of organizing information, it's a matter of not including it at all! But I agree, I'm amazed at how much text they'll give to an NPC while managing to not reveal things like... what they even look like, or what their building looks like.